unless, indeed, he fell fleeing like a coward from the battle. One
who had recognised the power of a higher faith than his countrymen
professed, and saw a nation on the way to the vigour that faith
inspired, who in personal spleen and envy set in operation a scheme
of the very worst sort to ruin Israel, was not an enemy worth the
edge of the sword. Let us suppose that a Hebrew soldier found him in
flight, and with a passing stroke brought him to the ground. There is
no tragedy in such a death; it is too ignominious. Whatever Balaam was
in his boyhood, whatever he might have been when the cry escaped him,
"Let me die the death of the righteous," selfish craft had brought him
below the level of the manhood of the time. Balak with his pathetic
faith in cursing and incantation now seems a prince beside the augur.
For Balaam, though he knew Jehovah after a manner, had no religion,
had only the envy of the religion of others. He came on the stage with
an air that almost deceived Balak and has deceived many. He leaves it
without one to lament him. Or shall we rather suppose that even for
him, in Pethor beyond the Euphrates, a wife or child waited and prayed
to Sutekh and, when the tidings of his death were brought, fell into
inconsolable weeping? Over the worst they think and do men draw the
veil to hide it from some eyes. And Balaam, a poor, mean tool of the
basest cravings, may have had one to believe in him, one to love him.
He reminds us of Absalom in his character and actions--Absalom, a man
void of religion and morals; and for him the father he had dethroned
and dishonoured wept bitterly in the chamber over the gate of Mahanaim,
"My son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my
son!" So may some woman in Pethor have wailed for Balaam fallen under
the spear of a Hebrew warrior.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Wellhausen, "Prolegomena," p. 424.
XXII
_A NEW GENERATION_
NUMBERS xxvi., xxvii
The numbering at Sinai before the sojourn in the Desert of Paran has
its counterpart in the numbering now recorded. In either case those
reckoned are the men able to go forth to war, from twenty years old and
upward. Once, an easy entrance into the land of promise may have been
expected; but that dream has long passed away. Now the Israelites are
made clearly to understand that the last effort will require the whole
warlike energy they can summon, the best courage of every one who can
handle sword or spear. There has been hitherto comparatively little
fighting. The Amalekites at an early stage, afterwards the Amorites
and the Bashanites, have had to be attacked. Now, however, the serious
strife is to begin. Peoples long established in Canaan have to be
assailed and dispossessed. Let the number of capable men be reckoned
that there may be confidence for the advance.
Nothing is to be won without energy, courage, unity, wise preparation
and adjustment of means to ends. True, the battle is the Lord's, and
He can give victory to the few over the many, to the feeble over the
strong. But not even in the case of Israel are the ordinary laws
suspended. This people has an advantage in its faith. That is enough
to support the army in the coming struggle; and the Israelites must
make Canaan theirs by force of arms. For, surely, in a sense, there
is right on the other side, the right of prior possession at least.
The Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, Hivites have tilled the land,
planted vineyards, built cities, and fulfilled, so far, their mission
in the world. They, indeed, never feel themselves secure. Often one
tribe falls on the territory of another, and takes possession. The
right to the soil has to be continually guarded by military power
and courage. It is not wonderful to Amorites that another race
should attempt the conquest of their land. But it would be strange,
humanly speaking impossible, that a weaker, less capable people
should master those who are presently in occupation. By the great
laws that govern human development, the dominant laws of God we may
call them, this could not be. Israel must show itself powerful, must
prove the right of might, otherwise it shall not even yet obtain the
inheritance it has long been desiring. The might of some nations is
purely that of animal physique and dogged determination. Others rise
higher in virtue of their intellectual vigour, splendid discipline,
and ingenious appliances. Man for man, Israelites should be a match
for any people, because there is trust in Jehovah, and hope in His
promise. Now the trial of battle is to be made; the Hebrews are to
realise that they will need all their strength.
Do we ever imagine that the law of endeavour shall be relaxed for us,
either in the physical or in the spiritual region? Is it supposed
that at some point, when after struggling through the wilderness we
have but a narrow stream between us and the coveted inheritance, the
object of our desire shall be bestowed in harmony with some other
law, having been procured by other efforts than our own? Thinking so,
we only dream. What we gain by our endeavour--physical, intellectual,
spiritual--can alone become a real possession. The future discipline
of humanity is misunderstood, the forecast is altogether wrong, when
this is not comprehended. In this world we have that for which we
labour; nothing more. So-called properties and domains do not belong
to their nominal owners, who have merely "inherited." The literature
of a country does not belong to those who possess books in which it
is contained; it is the domain of men and women who have toiled for
every ell and inch of ground. And spiritually, while all is the gift
of God, all has to be won by efforts of the soul. Before humanity
lies a Canaan, a Paradise. But no easy way of acquisition shall ever
be found, no other way indeed than has all along been followed. The
men of God able to go forth to war need to be numbered and brought
under discipline for the conquests that remain. And what is yet to
be won by moral courage and devotion to the highest shall have to be
kept in like manner.
The second numbering of the people showed that a new generation
filled the ranks. Plagues that swept away thousands, or the slow,
sure election of death, had taken all who left Egypt excepting a few.
It was the same Israel, yet another. Is, then, the nation of account,
and not the individuals who compose it? Perhaps the two numberings
may be intended to guard us against this error; at all events, we
may take them so. Man by man, the host was reckoned at Sinai; man
by man it is reckoned again in the plains of Moab. There were six
hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty: there are six
hundred and one thousand seven hundred and thirty. The numberings
by the command of Jehovah could not but mean that His eye was upon
each. And when the new race looked back along the wilderness way,
each group remembering its own graves over which the sand of the
desert was blown, there might at least be the thought that God also
remembered, and that the mouldering dust of those who, despite their
transgression, had been brave and loving and honest, was in His
keeping. Israel was experiencing a singular break in its history. It
would begin its new career in Canaan without memorials, except that
cave at Machpelah where, centuries before, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac
and Jacob, had been buried, and the field at Shechem where the body
of Joseph was laid. No graves but these would be the monuments of
Israel. In Jehovah, the Ancient of Days, lay the history, with Him
the career of the tribes.
The past receding, the future advancing, and God the sole abiding link
between them. For us, as for Israel, notwithstanding all our care of
the monuments and gains of the past, that is the one sustaining faith;
and it is adequate, inspiring. The swift decay of life, the constant
flux of humanity, would be our despair if we had not God.
"Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep:
In the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up;
In the evening it is cut down and withereth."
So the "Prayer of Moses the man of God," under the saddening thought
of mortality. But God is "from everlasting to everlasting," "the
dwelling place of His people in all generations." The life that
begins in the Divine will, and enjoys its day under the Divine care,
blends with the current, yet is not absorbed. A generation or a
people lives only as the men and women that compose it live. Such is
the final judgment, Christ's judgment, by which all providence is to
be interpreted. An Israelite might enter much into the national hope,
and to some extent forget himself for the sake of it. But his proper
life was never in that forgetfulness: it was always in personal
energy of will and soul that contributed to the nation's strength
and progress. The tribes, Reuben, Simeon, Judah, and the rest, are
mustered. But the men make the tribes, give them quality, value; or
rather, of the men, those who are brave, faithful, and true.
That each life is a fact in the Eternal overflowing Life, conscious
of all--in this there is comfort for us who are numbered among the
millions, with no particular claim to reminiscence, and aware, at
any rate, that when a few years pass the world will forget us. In
vain the most of us seek a niche in the Valhalla of the race, or
the record of a single line in the history of our time. Whatever
our suffering or achieving, are we not doomed to oblivion? The
grave-yard will keep our dust, the memorial stone will preserve our
names--but for how long? Until in the evolutions that are to come
the ploughshare of a covetous age tears up the soil we imagine to be
consecrated for ever. But there is a memory that does not grow old,
in which for good or evil we are enshrined. "We all live unto God."
The Divine consciousness of us is our strength and hope. It alone
keeps the soul from despair--or, if the life has not been in faith,
stings with a desperate reassurance. Does God remember us with the
love He beareth to His own? In any case each human life is held in an
abiding consciousness, a purpose which is eternal.
The page of Israel's history we are reading preserves many names. It
is in outline a genealogy of the tribes. Reuben's sons are Hanoch,
Pallu, Hezron, Carmi. The son of Pallu is Eliab. The sons of Eliab
are Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. And of Dathan and Abiram we are
reminded that they strove against Moses and Aaron in the company of
Korah; and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up. The
judgment of evildoers is commemorated. The rest have their praise in
this alone, that they held aloof from the sin. Turn to other tribes,
Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, for instance, and in the case of each the
names of those who were heads of families are given. In the First
Book of Chronicles the genealogy is extended, with various details
of settlement and history. In what are we to find the explanation of
this attempt to preserve the lineage of families, and the ancestral
names? If the progenitors were great men, distinguished by heroism,
or by faith, the pride of the descendants might have a show of
reason. Or again, if the families had kept the pure Hebrew descent
we should be able to understand. But no greatness is assigned to the
heads of families, not a single mark of achievement or distinction.
And the Israelites did not preserve their purity of race. In
Canaan, as we learn from the Book of Judges, they "dwelt among the
Canaanites, the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the
Hivite, and the Jebusite: and they took their daughters to be their
wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their
gods" (iii. 5, 6).
The sole reason we can find for these records is the consciousness of
a duty which the Israelites felt, but did not always perform--to keep
themselves separate as Jehovah's people. In the more energetic minds,
through all national defection and error, that consciousness survived.
And it served its end. The Bene-Israel, tracing their descent through
the heads of families and tribes to Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, realised
their distinctness from other races and entered upon a unique destiny
which is not yet fulfilled. It is a singular testimony to what on the
human side appears as an idea, a sentiment; to what on the Divine side
is a purpose running through the ages. Because of this human sentiment
and this Divine purpose, the former maintained apparently by the pride
of race, by genealogies, by traditions often singularly unspiritual,
but really by the over-ruling providence of God, Israel became unique,
and filled an extraordinary place among the nations. Many things
co-operated to make her a people regarding whom it could be said:
"Israel never stood quietly by to see the world badly governed, under
the authority of a God reputed to be just. Her sages burned with anger
over the abuses of the world. A bad man, dying old, rich, and at ease,
kindled their fury; and the prophets in the ninth century B.C. elevated
this idea to the height of a dogma.... The childhood of the elect is
full of signs and prognostics, which are only recognised afterwards."
A race may treasure its ancient records and venerated names to little
purpose, may preserve them with no other result than to mark its own
degeneracy and failure. Israel did not. The Unseen King of this people
so ordered their history that greater and still greater names were
added to the rolls of their leaders, heroes, and prophets, until the
Shiloh came.
By the computations that survive, a diminished yet not greatly
diminished number of fighting men was reckoned in the plains of Moab.
Some tribes had fallen away considerably, others had increased,
Simeon notably among the former, Judah and Manasseh among the latter.
The causes of diminution and increase alike are purely conjectural.
Simeon may have been involved in the sin of Baal-peor more than the
others and suffered proportionately. Yet we cannot suppose that,
on the whole, character had much to do with numerical strength.
Assuming the transgressions of which the history informs us and the
punishments that followed them, we must believe that the tribes were
on much the same moral plane. In the natural course of things there
would have been a considerable increase in the numbers of men. The
hardships and judgments of the desert and the defection of some by
the way are general causes of diminution. We have also seen reason
to believe that a proportion, not perhaps very great, remained at
Kadesh, and did not take the journey round Edom. It is certainly
worthy of notice with regard to Simeon that the final allocation
of territory gave to this tribe the district in which Kadesh was
situated. The small increase of the tribe of Levi is another fact
shown by the second census; and we remember that Simeon and Levi were
brethren (Gen. xlix. 5).
The numbering in the plains of Moab is connected in vv. 52-6 with
the division of the land among the tribes. "To the more thou shalt
give the more inheritance, and to the fewer thou shalt give the less
inheritance: to every one according to those that were numbered of
him shall his inheritance be given." The principle of allocation is
obvious and just. No doubt the comparative value of different parts
of Canaan was to be taken into account. There were fertile plains on
the one hand, barren highlands on the other. These reckoned for, the
greater the tribe the larger was to be the district assigned to it.
An elementary rule; but how has it been set aside! Vast districts of
Great Britain are almost without inhabitants; others are overcrowded.
An even distribution of people over the land capable of tillage is
necessary to the national health. In no sense can it be maintained
that good comes of concentrating population in immense cities. But
the policy of proprietors is not more at fault than the ignorant rush
of those who desire the comforts and opportunities of town life.
* * * * *
The twenty-seventh chapter is partly occupied with the details of a
case which raised a question of inheritance. Five daughters of one
Zelophehad of the tribe of Manasseh appealed to Moses on the ground
that they were the representatives of the household, having no
brother. Were they to have no possession because they were women? Was
the name of their father to be taken away because he had no son? It
was not to be supposed that the want of male descendants had been a
judgment on their father. He had died in the wilderness, but not as a
rebel against Jehovah, like those who were in the company of Korah.
He had "died in his own sins." They petitioned for an inheritance
among the brethren of their father.
The claim of these women appears natural if the right of heirship
is acknowledged in any sense, with this reservation, however, that
women might not be able properly to cultivate the land, and could not
do much in the way of defending it. And these, for the time, were
considerations of no small account. The five sisters may of course have
been ready to undertake all that was necessary as occupiers of a farm,
and no doubt they reckoned on marriage. But the original qualification
that justified heirship of land was ability to use the resources of
the inheritance and take part in all national duties. The decision
in this case marks the beginning of another conception--that of the
personal development of women. The claim of the daughters of Zelophehad
was allowed, with the result that they found themselves called to the
cultivation of mind and life in a manner which would not otherwise have
been open to them. They received by the judgment here recorded a new
position of responsibility as well as privilege. The law founded on
their case must have helped to make the women of Israel intellectually
and morally vigorous.
The rules of inheritance among an agricultural people, exposed to
hostile incursions, must, like that of ver. 8, assume the right of
sons in preference to daughters; but under modern social conditions
there are no reasons for any such preference, except indeed the
sentiment of family, and the maintenance of titles of rank. But the
truth is that inheritance, so-called, is every year becoming of
less moral account as compared with the acquisitions that are made
by personal industry and endeavour. Property is only of value as
it is a means to the enlargement and fortifying of the individual
life. The decision on behalf of the daughters of Zelophehad was of
importance for what it implied rather than for what it actually gave.
It made possible that dignity and power which we see illustrated
in the career of Deborah, whose position as a "mother in Israel"
does not seem to have depended much, if at all, on any accident of
inheritance; it was reached by the strength of her character and the
ardour of her faith.
* * * * *
The generation that came from Egypt has passed away, and now (xxvii.
12) Moses himself receives his call. He is to ascend the mountain of
Abarim and look forth over the land Israel is to inhabit; then he
is to be gathered to his people. He is reminded of the sin by which
Aaron and he dishonoured God when they failed to sanctify Him at the
waters of Meribah. The burden of the Book of Numbers is revealed.
The brooding sadness which lies on the whole narrative is not cast
by human mortality but by moral transgression and defect. There is
judgment for revolt, as of those who followed Korah. There are men who
like Zelophehad die "in their own sins," filling up the time allowed
to imperfect obedience and faith, the limit of existence that falls
short of the glory of God. And Moses, whose life is lengthened that his
honourable task may be fully done, must all the more conspicuously pay
the penalty of his high misdemeanour. With the goal of Israel's great
destiny in view the narrative moves from shadow to shadow. Here and
throughout, this is a characteristic of Old Testament history. And the
shadows deepen as they rest on lives more capable of noble service,
more guilty in their disbelief and defiance of Jehovah.
The rebuke which darkens over Moses at the close and lies on his
grave does not obscure the greatness of the man; nor have all
the criticisms of the history in which he plays so great a part
overclouded his personality. The opening of Israel's career may not
now seem so marvellous in a sense as once it seemed, nor so remote
from the ordinary course of Providence. Development is found where
previously the complete law, institution, or system appeared to burst
at once into maturity. But the features of a man look clearly forth
on us from the Pentateuchal narrative; and the story of the life is
so coherent as to compel a belief in its veracity, which at the same
time is demanded by the circumstances of Israel. A beginning there
must have been, in the line which the earliest prophets continued,
and that beginning in a single mind, a single will. The Moses of
these books of the exodus is one who could have unfolded the ideas
from which the nationality of Israel sprang: a man of smaller mind
would have made a people of more ordinary frame. Institutions that
grow in the course of centuries may reflect their perfected form on
the story of their origin; it is, however, certain this cannot be
true of a faith. That does not develop. What it is at its birth it
continues to be; or if a change takes place it will be to the loss
of definiteness and power. Kuenen himself makes the three universal
religions to be Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity. The analogy
of the two latter is conclusive with regard to the first--that Moses
was the author of Israel's faith in Jehovah.
And this involves much, both with regard to the human characteristics
and the Divine inspiration of the founder, much that an after-age
would have been utterly incapable of imagining. When we find a life
depicted in these Pentateuchal narratives, corresponding in all its
features with the place that has to be filled, revealing one who,
under the conditions of Israel's nativity, might have made a way for
it into sustaining faith, it is not difficult to accept the details
in their substance. The records are certainly not Moses' own. They
are exoteric, now from the people's point of view, now from that of
the priests. But they present with wonderful fidelity and power what
in the life of the founder went to stamp his faith on the national
mind. And the marvellous thing is that the shadows as well as the
lights in the biography serve this great end. The gloom that falls
at Meribah and rests on Nebo tells of the character of Jehovah,
bears witness to the Supreme Royalty which Moses lived and laboured
to exalt. A living God, righteous and faithful, gracious to them
that trusted and served Him, who also visited iniquity--such was the
Jehovah between whom and Israel Moses stood as mediator, such the
Jehovah by whose command he was to ascend the height of Abarim to die.
To die, to be gathered to his people--and what then? It is at death
we reckon up the account and estimate the value and power of faith.
Has it made a man ready for his change, ripened his character,
established his work on a foundation as of rock? The command which
at Horeb Moses received long ago, and the revelation of God he there
enjoyed, have had their opportunity; to what have they come?